Does smut count as porn?
16 years ago
Posts: 715
Well, smut can be counted as "softcore" porn; it less explicit than hentai....and sexual themes in this are non-explicit, there's no penetration like in hentai manga.
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Manga I'm loving ATM: Heart no Kuni no Alice
16 years ago
Posts: 2342
Smut is the version that pretty much anyone can watch. You know what's going on but it isn't shown.
By definition it isn't porn, but the difference is minimal and only really brought up as big by those who don't want to be known as pervs.
16 years ago
Posts: 833
Quote from Dr. Love
If I recall correctly, you don't like Ecchi, so it doesn't surprise me that you think of it that way..
I don't remember saying I dislike ecchi. And not liking and disliking isn't the same thing. Also, as I said before, the labeling doesn't work. And they're English anyways. In Japan there's no every possible genre listed, which has anything to do with the manga. There's seinen, josei, shoujo, shounen. Then they are labeled: action, romance, horror. There can be more than one. But if an action manga or romance manga has some "ecchi" in it, it doesn't make it "ecchi manga", if there's action or romance in "ecchi manga" then it should be called "ecchi", "action" and "romance". Fanservice is just fanservice. You know what I mean?
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Moderator16 years ago
Posts: 9026
Quote from 狂気
Fanservice is just fanservice. You know what I mean?
Exactly. There's nothing more to it.
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16 years ago
Posts: 158
That's really an interesting question. I've always considered smut "porn for girls". It's definitely very different from male-oriented hentai, but that is because women in general have a different attitude and perspective on sex. Pornography for women, then, wouldn't be the same as pornography for men. We seem to be comparing smut to hentai too much; because smut isn't as hardcore and exaggerated as hentai, or because women don't masturbate as much to it (women don't masturbate as much as men in general) it isn't porn? I don't think so. The main focus of smut is sex and the scintillation of the reader. That makes it porn.
There's a good paper on the subject by Linda Williams called Office Sluts and Rebel Flowers: The Pleasures of Japanese Pornographic Comics for Women. I think some of her statements are a little too general and some are incorrect, though, like that women relate to the characters in smut more men relate to the characters in their porn, and that the reason yaoi characters tend to look very feminine is so that women can relate to them more.
For the record, does "smut" on this website mean redezu komikku, ladies' comics, or does it mean "shoujo or josei with some sexual content"? They're two very different things.
Member16 years ago
Posts: 1975
like the others said,smut is more like softcore hentai.i mean,it doesn't show crotches and boobies all the way.and most smut mangas have a story.unlike most hentai that's just pure sex sex sex.
16 years ago
Posts: 158
Again, I think people are comparing smut to hentai too closely. Smut doesn't show body parts as explicitly because, in general, women are less interested in breasts and vaginas then men are. Smut has more storyline because, in general, women connect sex with love and romance or at least emotion more than men do. If anything, these two smut tropes serve to scinillate women more.
I agree with Williams in the idea that smut isn't an offshoot of hentai but rather an offshoot of shoujo and josei.
Moderator16 years ago
Posts: 9026
Quote from Revi_Malsaneta
Smut has more storyline because, in general, women connect sex with love and romance or at least emotion more than men do.
You say it yourself, that makes it erotic - not porn. Porn is sex for the sake of having sex. It has nothing to do with comparing it to Hentai. I read Smut at times, and I like romance and appreciate feelings as well. Does it look like porn to me? No, it doesn't.
"Pornography or porn is the depiction of explicit sexual subject matter for the purpose of sexually exciting the viewer. Pornography makes no claim to artistic merit, unlike erotica which does."
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16 years ago
Posts: 158
I think you're right in classifying smut as erotica. But does smut make more claim to artistic merit than hentai does? Some do and some don't, imo. By that defintion, some smut is porn and some isn't, and some hentai is porn and some isn't.
It would be easier to do call all non-live sexual material erotica. I've been trying to do that for a while now but slip up sometimes. ^^;
16 years ago
Posts: 1353
Smut = artistic merit? 🤣
If you have read at least some shoujo smut you wouldn't think so. They are awful and not better than hentai, just in a different way.
And not showing gential parts =/= porn. So smut is not porn. It's nothing close to porn (not counting the a few ones that do show body parts. But those are exceptions). Only those exceptions are softcore porn IMO.
16 years ago
Posts: 158
There are some decent smut series. 😐
But I don't think the depiction of genitals is a perfect guage for what's porn and what isn't. There's a lot of pretty hardcore yaoi that doesn't show the genitals because depiction of a penis used to be illegal in Japan. I think what defines porn is its purpose and not necessarily its content. Like most people wouldn't call a catalog for women's swimsuits cheesecake even though it shows basically the same amount of skin as a bikini spread in Playboy. By that definition the smut that intends itself to be used for sexual excitement - most of the stuff that falls under the classification of ladies' comics - is porn. The ones that focus more on the story and just have some sexual content, like Tsumi ni Nureta Futari, aren't.
I'm still going to call all written and drawn sexual material erotica, though. It's art, even if it's bad art. 😮
Edit: Hey, tentacle porn doesn't always show the vaginas explicitly. ... Now I wonder if there's tentacle smut...
16 years ago
Posts: 1353
The problem is exactly that - as long as there's sex, the shoujo manga will be called smut (well, most of the time), even if it's nothing close to erotica or porn, for example, Tsumi ni Nureta Futari or Red River. The criteria of this site are a bit problematic.
No matter it's ecchi, smut, hentai or photos in Playboy, being sexually exciting or not really depends on personal perspective. So from such standards, what is porn is perhaps different to individuals. I personally never find any shoujo/josei smut having the potential to be sexually exciting, so they are not porn to me. Not to mention their crappy/boring or dull/cliched plots, which are a turn-off instead, e.g.Watashi no Meganekun, Kindan Princess (I can only remember the bad drawing style of this 🤢 OK, you wanna make porn, but at leat draw it well.) or anything with rape then love or school life with bullies and jerks as male leads, etc. There are good/OK smut series, for example, a few Yoshihara Yuki's titles or Tokyo Erogance. But that's because they are funny. Porn? No to me. The same can be said about Junjo Shodo, depending on whether you find it funny. They are more like sex comedy (comedy > sex) than porn.
In the manga world, hentai = porn. So smut not showing body parts is not porn to me. Hard yaoi actually show genitals, but they are often not clearly drawn, I think?
16 years ago
Posts: 158
That's exactly it. What's sexually exciting and what isn't is incredibly subjective, so that's not a way to decide what's porn and what isn't, at least from a genre classification standpoint (that's a way to decide what's good porn). It's about whether or not something is supposed to be sexually exciting.
Believe me, ladies' comics can be very explicit. Cutaway views of vaginas to let you see what's going on in there! =D
Maybe someone should rally for a redefinition of "smut" on this website. The current definition seems to be basically the same as "mature" and isn't at all how the term is used here today...
Today penises are usually drawn out more or less clearly. But "invisible penis" used to be pretty common in slightly earlier yaoi (and hentai) that didn't want to use the ungraceful black box. I've seen scenes where characters appear to be jacking off thin air...
16 years ago
Posts: 2
i dont think so.... smut isnt porn.... its not so hardcore
16 years ago
Posts: 672
Does smut count as porn? Hmm...I don't think so.
Smut is generally sexy, without going over the top and using explicit sex scenes.
I find smut to be a more romantic version of the adult genre. Smut includes a lot of molestation, kissing, stripping, groping, but it usually stops right there. If there is actual intercourse, then penetration is something you will not definitely see in a smut manga, angle-wise of course.
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